This invention is a device that eliminates the blind-spot hazard experienced by automobile drivers in the use of side-view mirrors in road traffic.
With thousands of automobile accidents involving loss of life and property occurring every year on the crowded U.S. highways on account of the well-known blind-spot hazard, a side-view mirror devoid of the blind spot is a well recognized need of road safety. In the U.S. Pat. No. 6,390,632 B1 issued on May 21, 2002 in favor of the present Applicant, Jose C. Palathingal, it is noted that, for a left side-view mirror of the typical size, the road distance on the left of a car driver roughly 5xe2x80x2 to 30xe2x80x2 behind the driver may be defined as the so-called blind spot. Eliminating the problem of the blind spot is compounded by a number of requirements which have been delaying an entirely satisfactory solution; examples, good hydrodynamics of mounting, undistorted field of view, correct distance perception, good esthetics, low cost, etc. A device had been patented earlier by the present Applicant vide U.S. Pat. No. 6,074,068 dated Jun. 13, 2000. However, the rear and front surfaces of the reflecting elements of this device and of the device of the pending patent application cited above are not parallel, the front of the mirror being inclined to the silvered rear surface; and hence two separate distinguishable reflections of the headlights of an extraneous vehicle occur during night time, one from the smooth glass front and the other from the silvered rear. A driver thus sees twin images of each of the headlights of an extraneous vehicle during night time driving. Moreover, since in several embodiments of the said earlier devices, a single sector of the mirror may be composed of more than one series of reflecting elements of distinct orientations, the mirror can present for any one particular section of the road two or more mutually shifted views. This may cause confusion to some auto drivers at all hours of driving especially on a major multilane highway. Also, the image seen by the driver by reflection of light in any one particular direction by any one series of parallel reflecting elements is not contiguous in such cases, but formed of a series of parallel stripes with discontinuities in between. The mirror of the present invention is designed to avoid all these disadvantages and, as the Applicant has observed through road studies employing working models of the various devices, is a major improvement over these earlier devices. In avoiding the aforesaid problems, the present side-view mirror has been designed to meet five specific requirements; (i) contiguous road view of the rear left, 5xe2x80x2 to infinity (horizon) on a level road shall be made possible, (ii) each mirror element shall be planar, and have the front and rear surfaces parallel, (iii) each sector of the mirror assigned for view of a particular section of the road shall cause reflection of light originating from the specific road section in only one direction toward the eye of the driver, (iv) in the vertically mounted normal orientation of the mirror, the reflector elements that comprise each sector shall together cover the total horizontal dimension (width) of the sector without discontinuity so that the sector shall present a contiguous field of view to the driver, and (v) no curvature shall be present in the arraignment of the reflective elements.
The present invention comprises of a back support and a mirror assembly having two sectors, a planar first sector, and a saw-toothed second sector. The first sector shall have features of a conventional planar mirror, a planar front and a planar rear, both surfaces mutually parallel. The rear surface is reflective. The second sector is composed of a series of planar mirror strips arraigned over the back support parallel among themselves with the reflective surfaces in the rear. These mirror strips also have front and rear surfaces parallel, and are all inclined to the front surface of the first sector at a small predetermined angle xcex1. The spaces intervening between the front surfaces of adjacent mirror strips are narrow surface strips positioned between neighbor edge lines of the front surfaces of the mirror strips, approximately perpendicular to the front surface of the first sector. Thus, the front surface of the second sector is presented with a saw-toothed contour, made up of two series of surface strips; a first series representing the front surfaces of the mirror strips and a second series comprising the intervening surface strips. The planar surfaces of the first series are preferably of identical size and shape, preferably rectangular. The intervening surface strips of the second series are preferably planar, of identical size and shape, preferably rectangular, and mutually parallel. The front surfaces of the mirror assembly whereon light is incident are transparent and refractive, and are covered, in some embodiments, with a transparent sheet or coating that acts as a protective sealant.